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I run a game studio and we often hire people that worked in other industries before. In fact most of our staff have no prior professional games experience. Whe

I run a game studio and we often hire people that worked in other industries before. In fact most of our staff have no prior professional games experience. When I see people fail to transition its because they aren’t willing to put in the work to switch industries: 1. Learn some games relevant skills after hours to show that you are prepared and not expecting us to train you from scratch (unity or unreal are most common). The tools are free for personal and there are tons of free online tutorials. Build a small game — can be very small like a breakout clone. This will show the initiative you took on your own and what skills you’ve developed. 2. Don’t expect us to pay you as much as you’re making in your past industry because your skills may not translate and we will be taking a risk on an unproven gun. If you go into the interview with those two it’s a no-brainer for us, but we also are a small indie studio so ymmv at a larger place.

temporary22 4y ago
"1. Learn some games relevant skills after hours to show that you are prepared and not expecting us to train you from scratch (unity or unreal are most common). [..] This will show the initiative you took on your own and what skills you’ve developed." Are you evaluating also how much time it took to complete the after hour project? What if I complete a clone game in 2 years? This might be excluding anybody that cannot work after hours, for a reason or another.
- mnsc 4y ago
  Excluding everyone that cannot work after hours might be the intention?
- gfxgirl 4y ago
  > This might be excluding anybody that cannot work after hours, for a reason or another. Maybe I'm reading into this but I see this type of response a lot on HN. > A: You need experience. Get some after hours > B: I don't have any time after hours. It's not fair Like gees! What do you expect? B: I wanna be guitar player in a rock band A: Well, if you don't play guitar, take lessons after hours B: I don't have any time after hours A: So what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not about to add someone who's never played guitar and can't demonstrate the skills as a guitarist in my band. It's not my problem that you can't play, don't have the time to learn, and yet want to be in my band. --- Same for any company: So what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not about to add someone who's never programmed games and can't demonstrate the skills as a game programmer in my team. It's not my problem that you can't code games, don't have the time to learn, and yet want to be in my gamedev company.
  - 000001010011100 4y ago
    Judging by this response you don't seem to have many things that could or would take up your spare time. Please, please please think about you comment when/if you ever have kids. I guarantee your perspective will have changed a great deal.
    - flippinburgers 4y ago
      One of the very real sacrifices of becoming a parent is that your ability to just try out new stuff be it a job or a hobby becomes very limited.
    - ttyprintk 4y ago
      Should number of kids come up in a job interview?
    - badpun 4y ago
      It's not possible to have it all in life. The choice of having kids (and being a good and responsible parent to them) obviously closes some other doors.
    - RadiozRadioz 4y ago
      This person is speaking from the employer's perspective, I struggle to see how becoming a parent would change the equation for their side. They want to hire people who already have some degree of relevant experience. That is a reasonable requirement. If that excludes some parents who don't have time, so be it. Being a parent is one of many lifestyle choices that can limit one's ability to arrive at an interview with sufficient background knowledge. It does not warrant special treatment & exception just because it's parenting.
  - robswc 4y ago
    Totally agree. I really don't understand what people think the solution should be. If person A has 10,000 hours (because they've been doing something for years) and person B has 1,000 hours (because they had other commitments) you ofc (save other reasons) have to hire person A. It sucks but I genuinely don't know what else to say. I work in quantitative trading and the number of people that think they can just throw a script together and make money is... well, if I had a dollar for each...
- lentil_soup 4y ago
  I have hired a bunch of people in game-dev, personally it doesn't matter how long it took. If you show me a demo game/project you've built then we can talk about it, problems you faced, decisions you made about the architecture, your pipeline, where you cut corners, etc. I don't care how long it took (specially if it's a hobby after work kind of thing) as long as I can see you have a solid understanding and experience of what the work really is. Not having time after hours it's a hard problem to solve. Gamedev problems are quite different to other software industries so previous experience might not immediately translate, this is specially true for gameplay programmers or things like tools and engine where you need to have experience with working with artists/designers and within the constraints typical of games (memory, performance, platforms, etc). But other fields like, backend, devops, data analysis I've seen often hire from outside the industry
- dangero 4y ago
  We are OK with missing out on some people because we cannot clearly evaluate their ability I don’t care how long it took. Longer would demonstrate a sustained interest. Shorter would demonstrate efficiency. Both are valuable
fckgnad 4y ago
>"we will be taking a risk on an unproven gun." I don't think such a transition happens the other way around. It shows that game programmers are superior to web programmers. It's hard to swallow but it's true. There are web developers who aren't good enough to be game programmers and the reverse is unlikely to be true. I say this from the point of view as a backend web developer.
- dangero 4y ago
  I’m biased but I think game devs are some of the smartest out there. The bar is high.
flippinburgers 4y ago
How does a person who is curious about this contact you?
- dangero 4y ago
  Not currently hiring and we only hire local to Los Angeles, CA

temporary22 4y ago

"1. Learn some games relevant skills after hours to show that you are prepared and not expecting us to train you from scratch (unity or unreal are most common). [..] This will show the initiative you took on your own and what skills you’ve developed." Are you evaluating also how much time it took to complete the after hour project? What if I complete a clone game in 2 years? This might be excluding anybody that cannot work after hours, for a reason or another.

mnsc 4y ago
Excluding everyone that cannot work after hours might be the intention?
gfxgirl 4y ago
> This might be excluding anybody that cannot work after hours, for a reason or another. Maybe I'm reading into this but I see this type of response a lot on HN. > A: You need experience. Get some after hours > B: I don't have any time after hours. It's not fair Like gees! What do you expect? B: I wanna be guitar player in a rock band A: Well, if you don't play guitar, take lessons after hours B: I don't have any time after hours A: So what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not about to add someone who's never played guitar and can't demonstrate the skills as a guitarist in my band. It's not my problem that you can't play, don't have the time to learn, and yet want to be in my band. --- Same for any company: So what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not about to add someone who's never programmed games and can't demonstrate the skills as a game programmer in my team. It's not my problem that you can't code games, don't have the time to learn, and yet want to be in my gamedev company.
- 000001010011100 4y ago
  Judging by this response you don't seem to have many things that could or would take up your spare time. Please, please please think about you comment when/if you ever have kids. I guarantee your perspective will have changed a great deal.
  - flippinburgers 4y ago
    One of the very real sacrifices of becoming a parent is that your ability to just try out new stuff be it a job or a hobby becomes very limited.
  - ttyprintk 4y ago
    Should number of kids come up in a job interview?
  - badpun 4y ago
    It's not possible to have it all in life. The choice of having kids (and being a good and responsible parent to them) obviously closes some other doors.
  - RadiozRadioz 4y ago
    This person is speaking from the employer's perspective, I struggle to see how becoming a parent would change the equation for their side. They want to hire people who already have some degree of relevant experience. That is a reasonable requirement. If that excludes some parents who don't have time, so be it. Being a parent is one of many lifestyle choices that can limit one's ability to arrive at an interview with sufficient background knowledge. It does not warrant special treatment & exception just because it's parenting.
- robswc 4y ago
  Totally agree. I really don't understand what people think the solution should be. If person A has 10,000 hours (because they've been doing something for years) and person B has 1,000 hours (because they had other commitments) you ofc (save other reasons) have to hire person A. It sucks but I genuinely don't know what else to say. I work in quantitative trading and the number of people that think they can just throw a script together and make money is... well, if I had a dollar for each...
lentil_soup 4y ago
I have hired a bunch of people in game-dev, personally it doesn't matter how long it took. If you show me a demo game/project you've built then we can talk about it, problems you faced, decisions you made about the architecture, your pipeline, where you cut corners, etc. I don't care how long it took (specially if it's a hobby after work kind of thing) as long as I can see you have a solid understanding and experience of what the work really is. Not having time after hours it's a hard problem to solve. Gamedev problems are quite different to other software industries so previous experience might not immediately translate, this is specially true for gameplay programmers or things like tools and engine where you need to have experience with working with artists/designers and within the constraints typical of games (memory, performance, platforms, etc). But other fields like, backend, devops, data analysis I've seen often hire from outside the industry
dangero 4y ago
We are OK with missing out on some people because we cannot clearly evaluate their ability I don’t care how long it took. Longer would demonstrate a sustained interest. Shorter would demonstrate efficiency. Both are valuable

fckgnad 4y ago

>"we will be taking a risk on an unproven gun." I don't think such a transition happens the other way around. It shows that game programmers are superior to web programmers. It's hard to swallow but it's true. There are web developers who aren't good enough to be game programmers and the reverse is unlikely to be true. I say this from the point of view as a backend web developer.

dangero 4y ago
I’m biased but I think game devs are some of the smartest out there. The bar is high.

flippinburgers 4y ago

How does a person who is curious about this contact you?

dangero 4y ago
Not currently hiring and we only hire local to Los Angeles, CA